My nephew was studying in Tokyo where he met his Chinese love. They are now married and she has earned US citizen citizenship. She has shared terrible stories about the starvation and chaos that is part of everyday life there. Her dad was a principal of a school and barely earned enough to feed his small family. The family lived in a tiny home with no plumbing. Per Fei, the value of human life, especially female human life, is VERY low. The brainwashing is amazing. She refuses to return due to fear that they will NEVER let her leave because she now knows how life REALLY is outside the artificial world of CHINA. The government there is clinging to power and limiting web use to try to retain control.

It is well and good to ask how China will change the world. I believe that we must also ask how we changed China. I believe in 2020 we will see a better China. The government has been sewing the seeds of its own erosion by letting its college age students attend western universities. They have experienced life away from the trappings of communism and bring back a new way of thinking, of life, to China. Add this to the existing influence of Taiwan and Hong Kong you have the makings of a country that will undergo many cultural and political changes. I believe in 2020 we will be better trading partners, political allies than we are today.

I don't expect China to collapse. The best bet for them is to try to get the population out of poverty gradually. Outside influence will eventually break the blocade of information. There are so many Chinese living outside of China with families still in China, the information is gettin through them. Plus, there are so many western business in China now.

China main issue is that they have too many people for the amount of resources and land they populate. This is one of the reasons the value of life there is low, I think in India it is too. On top of it, in a totalitarian regime value of life is pretty much zero.

Their limited resources limit their growth on for that reason I am not as bullish on China as many others.

Long-term if they manage navigate successfully I see them becoming something like Germany - a lot of educated, hardworking people but with limited land and resources. They have to make up in productivity and quality of what they produce.

If not, well, then any unrest will continue to be squashed militarily.

Also, think back to how Germany tried to solve its resources problem - through wars. China would love to have russian Siberia but we are past the age of invasions, thank God. So, they are stuck. Russians will not let them into Siberia , no matter what the terms. And there is nowhere else left to expand. They are trying Africa, but Africa is too far, it is pretty costly.